(Warning: May contains spoilers for the Game of Thrones finale.) Subverted expectations. Poor character development. Shoddy writing. An unexpected and dissatisfying demise for the primary antagonist. There is even a petition to have it rewritten and remade. Do all of these thing sound familiar? If you’re a Star Wars fan, they probably do. Each one of these statements describes Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. But we’re not actually talking about The Last Jedi. We’re talking about Game of Thrones Season 8.
Every one of the statements listed above is directly applicable to fan reaction to Game of Thrones Season 8. As it turns out, the show’s final season has the dubious honor of sharing all these common traits with The Last Jedi. Each of the two subverted expectations when it came to a major character of the saga/series. For The Last Jedi it was with Luke Skywalker. For Game of Thrones, it was, well, pick a character.
Whether Jaime Lannister returning to Cersei’s side, or Daenerys going dragon-sh*t crazy, fans expected something drastically differently than what they got.
Game of Thrones Season 8 is the Series’ ‘The Last Jedi‘
The comparisons don’t end there, however. Complaints about the writing for both abound on the Interwebs. One the one hand there was the illogical and physics-defying, slowest space chase in the history of space chases. For Game of Thrones Season 8, again, pick something and fans are complaining about it. (Admittedly even I took issue with Jon’s non-goodbye goodbye to Ghost. Thankfully they made amends for that in the finale.) Fans blame Rian Johnson for The Last Jedi. Now, similarly, fans are blaming Benioff & Weiss of the writing in Season 8.
Perhaps the biggest parallel is the decidedly dissatisfying death of the show’s perceived primary antagonist. (Writer’s Note: I found one other death even more dissatisfying. Find out which one by clicking HERE.) As Snoke met a rather unspectacular and unexpected end in TLJ, so too did the Night King in Game of Thrones Season 8.
These are just the easily identifiable comparisons… Of course, we know that Benioff & Wiess produced Game of Thrones Season 8. They are producing the next Star Wars films. There are even rumors Rian Johnson may be involved with their trilogy. And is there some correlation between the GoT and TLJ because both happen to be the eighth installment of the respective sagas?
Things to ponder. All I really care about is that Drogon and Ghost lived. You guys can fight about the rest amongst yourselves.
